MindanaoToday.com | COWD disputes COBI’s P437-M water billings
By: URIEL QUILINGUING
The Cagayan de Oro Water District (COWD) is questioning the P437-million water billings from January 2021 to December of 2023 which its water supplier Cagayan de Oro Bulkwater Inc. (COBI) is demanding payment.
COWD General Manager Antonio Young on Tuesday, January 16, said they have been regular in paying monthly billings to COBI based from the P16.60 rate per-cubic-meter of water as set in a COWD-COBI agreement inked in August of 2017.
Young said COBI increased the rate per cubic meter of water to P20.57 from P16.60 in January 2021 even without their knowledge, ignoring even a COWD Board Resolution appealing for no tariff rate increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said that although the COWD-COBI agreement allows rate adjustments every three years, yet Section 10 of the document stipulates force majeure conditions when increase in water tariff rates should be suspended, and one of which was in an epidemic.
Based on P16.60 per cubic-meter rate, the COWD general manager said they have already settled their obligations for September, October and November and that the December billing would be paid before January 2024 ends.
Young said that while they are contesting the P3.97-increase over the originally agreed P16.60 rate, COBI has announced yet another rate increment starting in its January 2024 billing and the new rate per cubic meter would be P24.19.
“Undoubtedly, these developments will bring about a major financial strain on COWD if it adopts COBI’s imposed rates,” reads a portion of a COWD press statement posted online Monday, January 15.
Even with COBI’s imposition of new rates, COWD’s P21.84 selling price of water per cubic meter has not changed since 2011, despite their previous requests for rate adjustments before the City Council were turned down.
Local lawmakers wanted to allow business firms to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and for COWD management to trim down its relatively high 55-percent non-revenue water rate. “Our NRW in November last year was down to 48.66 percent,” Young said.
He said that of the 200,000 cubic meters of water produced daily, roughly 40 percent of which comes from COBI while 60 percent is extracted by COWD production wells.
Young said negotiation between COWD and COBI on the P3.97 rate differential covering January 2021 until December 2023 is ongoing.
Meanwhile, the City Information Office in Cagayan de Oro reported on Tuesday, January 16, that Mayor Rolando Uy has asked COBI to reconsider “its payment demand to avoid inconveniencing the city’s water consumers.”
“I will ask COBI not to cut its supply to COWD because it will severely affect the city’s households…I will try to appeal to them not to cut their supply (even if) we have to pay the bills (by installment),” Uy was reported as saying.
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